Skiers Claim First Descent on Canadian Rockies' Highest Peak

Originally posted on Powder | By Ian Greenwood | Last updated Feb 20, 2025 4:15 PM ET

Ski mountaineers Christina "Lusti" Lustenberger and Guillaume "Gee" Pierrel just etched their names in the history books.

On Sunday, February 16, 2025 they underwent a first ski descent of Mount Robson (Yuh-hai-has-kun), British Columbia's highly technical southern face. During the descent, Lusti also became the first woman to ever ski Mount Robson.

"It was an extremely challenging and exposed line, it was incredibly stressful and it's great to be able to now celebrate this achievement," said Lusti after the descent.

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At 3,954 meters (12972.44 ft), Mount Robson is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The imposing mountain was first climbed in 1913 by Conrad Kain, Albert MacCarthy, and William Foster.

Several decades later, a team consisting of Ptor Spricenieks and Troy Jungen skied off Mount Robson's northern face in 1995. But until now, the southern face, which looms over Yellowhead Highway, has gone unskied.

It's easy to see why. The line the skiers chose down the face is a narrow strip of snow flanked by cliff bands. See below.

In total, Lusti and Gee's ascent of Mount Robson took two days. The downhill involved multiple rappels and took three and a half hours.

To Lusti, it was the realization of a goal years in the making. She grew up in the area around Mount Robson and, for almost a decade, dreamed of sliding down its southern face. Gee, in a conversation with the CBC, called participating in the first descent with Lusti "such an honor."

"Finding space as an explorer and a steep skier, you start to look at mountains differently. You try to imagine your own way through them. The south face had been left. No one had looked at it to climb and ski," Lusti told the CBC. "And we did."

For Gee and Lusti, completing the Mt. Robson descent is another sizable feather in their collective ski mountaineering caps. In October, the pair completed the first ski descent of Hunter's Moon, a winding, hellaciously steep line positioned on New Zealand's Aoraki/Mt. Cook.

"When you're trying to do things at a really high level, in your sport, and in the mountains, your partner is such a huge contributing factor to that," Lusti told POWDER after the Aoraki/Mt. Cook descent. "Gee has only elevated what's possible for me in the mountains and what's possible in this type of terrain."

Before that, in May, Lusti skied the west face of Pakistan's 6,286-meter Great Trango Tower with Chantel Astorga and Jim Morrison in a historic first. Gripped Magazine called it "one of the greatest descents in ski mountaineering since the dawn of the sport."

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

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